Local Columnists

Since my own tomato plants are getting tall, flowering and beginning to develop fruit, this might be a good time to write about how to care for tomato plants.

I am continually amazed at the torrent of political misinformation fed to us, much of which is by syndicated columnists secure in their knowledge that their loyal and gullible readership won’t bother to look for evidence to the contrary, regardless of its ready availability.

They are not gentle people,” my neighbor, who is Indian, observed over chai one night. We were talking about some of the people in our neighborhood, which has gone downhill over the past year.

As I celebrate my 25th year as a columnist I look back over my shoulder and think of the way my world has changed over the years and how my attitude toward life has changed because of it.

There’s a bill floating around that would let our government sue members of the OPEC for driving up the price of oil.

I once belonged to the Book of the Month Club, as well as the Beer of the Month Club — but, I tell you, one thing I can’t subscribe to is George W.’s Iraq Strategy of the Month Club.

To President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and members of the House and Senate:

You’ve all been shocked — shocked to discover the care some of our wounded soldiers received was substandard. But what did you expect?

On Wednesday, according to my newspaper, 13 citizen topic groups hit their deadline for turning in their ideas for what needs to happen to improve our town. I’m betting there will be interesting results.

As the proverbial bad penny, there are fundamentally terrible ideas which continue to resurface from time to time. The latest in this parade, reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine came about largely as a result of yet another “foot-in-mouth” reaction by Trent Lott, the well-meaning but often judgmentally challenged Senate Minority Whip.

Do you think you don’t have enough space to grow a lot of plants? If not, you could always try “growing up.” Vertical gardening, as the technique is called, is a great option for those who have limited space.

From time to time we get away from hard news to talk about something brighter, such as the recent worldwide vote to select the New Seven Wonders of the World, built by man.

Some of my university friends worry that we’re headed back to the bad old days of the Ashcroft administration, when a hostile governor and a politicized Board of Curators thought — or said they thought — that they could achieve greatness by slashing away at the institution.

Missourian reporters Kendra Lueckert and Jewels Phraner on Wednesday tried to meet one of journalism’s higher callings — holding your government accountable — with a story about school district officials’ decision on where to place Columbia’s third major high school.

Attacks on humanism, whether secular or sectarian, is on the rise and we, as Americans of religion or of heresy, should be very angry.

Recently a local newspaper carried a story about theft of Columbia street signs. Vandals (read: thieves) increasingly, says the report, abscond with street signs that make it difficult for emergency vehicles to find addresses. Life and death emergencies result from missing signs.

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the death penalty as an appropriate punishment for aggravated murder or other grievous assaults upon humanity, we should applaud the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Missouri’s lethal injection procedure is neither cruel nor unusual punishment.

Building a scrapbook is one way of collecting personal memories. Family photographs and other memorabilia serve as great reminders of times and places that are sometimes lost in the busyness of everyday life.

With the U.S. at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, what are the country’s commitments to traditional values on this July 4th?